Winter was coming; the days were growing dark and cold, and Mr. Sly Fox was beginning to get hungry again. He wondered what he should do for food, and began to hunt about the woods.
One day he met a wolf who was also in search of food.
The wolf asked him, “Fox, Fox, where have you been, you look so fine and fat, while all the other animals are hungry these cold days?”
“Of course I look fine,” said the fox. “I hunt all the time and get plenty of food.”
“What do you hunt?”
The fox had to think hard for an answer; then he said, “Well, I fish every day.”
It was winter then, and so far north the days were very short. The sun got up late in the morning, and went to bed again in about three hours; even then he didn’t get far up in the sky, but hung low like a great big red balloon on the horizon.
The wolf asked the fox where he was getting all that fish.
The fox answered, “O, I have a big lake where I get all the fish I want. I will show it to you if you would like me to.” And he asked the wolf if he had any hooks to fish with.
“No,” said the wolf. “I have no fish-hooks because I never fish. I don’t know how.”